Flourishing programs in 90+ disciplines. A vibrant Christian mission. $50 million
in new campus construction. Championship athletics. 94% placement within 6 months
of graduation. There’s never been a better time to consider Hope College.

As a member of the MIAA and NCAA Division III associations, Hope College sponsors
22 varsity sports for men and women. The college is home to the 2014 NCAA Division
III National Championship women’s volleyball team.

Breadcrumb Navigation

Grand Challenges Initiative

A major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation brings together faculty and students from multiple divisions and disciplines in
exploring “grand challenges” — the important issues facing the world in which the
students are preparing to live and work.

The college received an $800,000, three-year grant from the foundation to establish
the “Mellon Grand Challenges Initiative,” through which Hope has developed linked
courses across the disciplines and established faculty-student research opportunities
built around large-scale, relevant themes — like, for example, post-conflict reconciliation,
religious coexistence, globalization or freedom of speech. In addition to addressing
the questions themselves, the program also models how bringing together the skills
and insights of multiple disciplines provides the best hope of addressing complex
issues.

The initiative provides new courses and a new emphasis in the college’s general education
program as well as collaborative faculty-student research opportunities in the summer,
both of which have long histories at the college. The Mellon Grand Challenges Initiative
began fall 2017 and supports the development of about six projects per semester, involving
two or more faculty members, developing a potential total of about 50 new linked courses.

The courses are selected from proposals submitted by professors interested in teaching
them, drawing upon their unique strengths, with the expectation that the proposals
will involve at least one general education course and potential engagement with students
from across the disciplines. In keeping with the program’s goals, requirements include
involvement by at least two faculty from different academic divisions (arts, humanities,
natural and applied sciences, and social sciences); a topic reflecting the “grand
challenges” theme; potential summer research opportunities for students; and a plan
for sharing the research results through poster presentations, involvement in professional
conferences and the development of online projects similar to those created by students
in the college’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities
since 2010.

The initiative also helps to create a larger continuity within the rest of the college’s
curriculum. While the courses can be for any level of student, a new freshman-level
First-Year Seminar, for example, could lead into a similarly-themed course in chemistry
or religion or psychology, or into a cross-disciplinary program such as environmental
studies, and ultimately perhaps provide guidance into choice of major and even career
path.

The program ties particularly to a variety of objectives in the college’s strategic
plan, “Hope for the World: 2025,” adopted in 2015, including emphasis on providing
faculty-supervised experience that link intellectual skills developed through the
liberal arts with vocational experiences; engaging multiple perspectives and disciplines
in teaching, learning and scholarship; and enhancing cross-cultural and global learning.

Although the Mellon Grand Challenges Initiative is a separate program with its own
distinct focus, it builds on the experience of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars
Program in the Arts and Humanities, which integrates technology, experiential education
and faculty-student collaborative research in the arts and humanities. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities began in 2010 through funding from the foundation, which provided an additional grant
for the program in 2013.